The Meal Man

There's that guy, the only guy that Alan Weller ever had to call the sheriff about during his year and a half as manager of The Soup Kitchen west of Boynton Beach.

The guy who threatened Weller is there again, in the food line getting a plate of fried chicken, pasta and salad. He's not causing trouble today, but Weller is watching him.

The man broke an unbreakable requirement at The Soup Kitchen: respect.

For the volunteers who work there, and for every person who comes in with an empty stomach, whether they're neatly groomed or ragged from months of living in the woods, respect is nonnegotiable.

So Weller, wrapping up his term as the first paid manager of The Soup Kitchen, warns his replacement, Jim Pecar, about the troublemaker.

For the most part, the change of command in late September was positive, more about giving. Pecar arrived days before his official start to see how things worked.

Actually, Pecar, 63, who lives west of Delray Beach, knew how things worked long before that. He heard about it from friends at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Boynton Beach who volunteer at the kitchen.

A Detroit native who moved his general contracting business to Florida 30 years ago, Pecar shut down that company in 1986. He worked as project manager for St. Thomas More until a year ago, fixing whatever needed to be fixed at the 4,500-member church with several buildings on 17 acres.

"If someone's car didn't start, or Aunt Alma needed someone to help her walk down the aisle because she had bad legs, I had the freedom to stop my maintenance work and help," Pecar said.

He retired from the church a year ago but continued to volunteer one day a week.

Pecar took the job at The Soup Kitchen partly to make a few bucks but mostly to continue helping people.

"I've trusted my beliefs most of my life and the good Lord takes cares of me," Pecar said. "I think the most important thing is to be thankful for what he gives you and to help others."

Along that line, Pecar follows his predecessor, Weller.

"I hope I've helped a lot of people on the other side of the counter," Weller said. "We feed lots of different kinds of people."

The Soup Kitchen began in 1986 at U.S. 441 and West Boynton Beach Boulevard and served 7,000 meals. In 2001, three years after it opened in a bright, new Mediterranean building on the campus of Caridad Health Clinic, it served 45,000 meals. That was 10,000 more than the previous year.

The Soup Kitchen is now serving about 1,000 meals a week, said President Alma Rinaldi.

Pecar takes over at a time when numbers of the hungry are increasing and donations are down, likely a result of Sept. 11 repercussions and the unstable stock market. The kitchen runs completely on donations of money and food.

The $100,000 a year budget is in trouble next year if donations don't pick up, said Vice President Bert Lesser.

"So far we're holding our own," Lesser said.

Rhonda J. Miller can be reached at rjmiller@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6605.